Archepelago - Mirah - You Think It's Like This But Really, It's Like This - 2000

...this New Years however was something of a mixed bag. The evening started out well enough. My buddy Corey offered to host at his quite swanky and spacious Bushwick loft. My ladyfriend (who looked quite fetching that night) and I had sushi at our friend Shani's and then headed over for the festivities about 830. We helped with some of the party prep and drank some wine...the evening was going swimmingly.

Soon the guests began arriving and again, things were going well. It was a nice mix of close friends and people I'd never met. Several of my ladyfriend's Russian friends showed and turned up the excitement a bit. There was a fair bit of rowdiness, juvenile horseplay, vodka slamming, and party lesbianism...exactly what you want in a good NYE party.

Midnight came and I kissed my girl and slammed champagne and prepared to ride out the evening watching Russian girls grope each other....but then, about 130 AM, one of the party attendees had to turn into That Guy.

He'd shown up about 1130 and started pounding booze. He saw a room full of attractive girls engaging in mildly risque behavior and probably thought that 2009 was shaping up to be a GREAT year. It took him till about 130 to realize that all of those girls were going home with the guys they showed up with, and he was going home alone...that's when a tantrum of epic proportions broke out. He began going around the room, having determined that smoothness would get him nowhere, and blatantly asking women to service him...usually in this request was made in front of the target's boyfriend. When he was inevitably denied, he would respond with what I'm sure he thought of as a clever witticism "You won't suck? You suck!"

Eventually one of the boyfriends decided to do something about this and chucked a piece of ice at his head...this meant that I now had a six foot two wildly drunk and angry Latino man with a gushing head wound to deal with in a room full of suddenly surly Russians at 2 in the morning on NYE. My visions of how my evening was going to end went from pornographic to sad and annoying rather quickly.

Anytime I attempted to point out that perhaps it was time to go, I was given the response of "Listen, I am HOME...I am HOME, right here!!!" He then went on to trash the bathroom, man handle my girlfriend, and at one point stand in the middle of the room with a broom handle and stamp the ground over and over. Finally at 245, everyone was tired of his nonsense and we decided to simply call the party and show everyone the door.

We threw him in a cab, only for him to refuse to tell the driver where he lived and to hurl strings of insults at him in Spanish. My girlfriend ended up paying the cabbie $20 just to get him out of there. We both went home and crashed, our visions of ringing in the new year appropriately long forgotten and the memory of what had been a really great party forever tarnished.

Needless to say, we aren't speaking to this guy anymore.

Anyway, back to the music...I love the album this Mirah track comes from, but find this particular track a little lackluster. It takes an extra-special bit of songwriting to elevate a song that is merely voice and acoustic guitar. Archipelago isn't bad, but it's hardly strong enough to be anything but NPR/Starbucks compilation bait.

Archetype - Through The Sparks - Lazarus Beach - 2007

So, typically speaking New Years Eve is my favorite holiday of the year, though most people I know hate it. To me, New Years is about celebrating possibility. Granted, things look really really bleak right now, but you never know: 2009 could be the best year of your life. 2009 could be the year that the whole world comes together. 2009 could be the year that you have the craziest adventure, the wildest love affair, the best new job. 2009 could be the year that a cure for cancer/diabetis/baldness is found. 2009 could be the year we implement a workable solution for health care/education/poverty. Any of this is possible. 2009 could just be another year, or the worst year of your life...but why not celebrate the possibility of what it COULD be?

As for NYE itself, people talk about hating the expectations, but I've found that if you go in with no expecations, just treat it as a night in which you are drinking with some friends...you will find that you will have a great night. If you go in expecting some sort of grand experience, you will probably be disappointed.

And usually, NYE is one of the best times of the year for me...usually...

Archer v Light - Chris Walla - Field Manual - 2008

It seems kind of fitting that I say good bye to 2008 with a song like this...a song that probably seemed very relevant before November 4th and already seems a little bit dated, like a 60's protest song.

I've probably said before how shocked so many of my friends (including myself) were by the 2000 election. We simply thought of Republicans as old people and bible nerds, surely they could never unite to over come the basic "rightness" of the Clinton Administration...but that was the shortsightedness of youth. Never having seen the pendulum of history swing, I was honestly stunned that a simple blow job could sway the country so dramatically.

And now, as we sit on the brink of a new era, and Chris Walla's protest song sounds so dated...I have to fear that the same complacency will set in with the American left again. "No one is going to elect a Republican after what Bush has done"...but the pendulum always sways.

Musically, Walla was always the brains behind Death Cab, but sadly his voice is reedy and not that interesting...and it's sort of shocking that anyone could have a more reedy voice than Ben Gibbard (Oh and on that subject, how does that wussy little emo boy end up engaged to Zooey Deschanel? There is no justice in the world)